Infant carriers are well-known and used to easily carry an infant from place-to-place as well as seating for an infant for feeding or playing. These carriers are generally a plastic shell with a seating surface, sides, an adjustable carry handle, rocker-shaped bottom runners, a restraint harness, a carry handle and a pad.
Infant carriers are often used as infant car seats either by themselves, or with the addition of a base. If the carriers are used as a car seat by themselves, they have hooks of some kind which can be used to secure them to an automobile seatbelt. If they are used with a base, the base has a somewhat torso-shaped contour over which an automobile seatbelt is passed to secure the base in the automobile. The carrier is then attached to the base in some way.
Infant car seats have progressed over the years. The first infant car seat was little more than a double-walled plastic dish pan (the GM® Loveseat). Evenflo advanced the state-of-the-art with a lightweight infant car seat with an adjustable angle (the Dyn-o-mite™). Century followed with an infant car seat with a carry handle and a stay-in-the-car base (the Century® 580). Other manufacturers have also added improvements as they introduced new models. The various seats have provided good protection in transporting children in automobiles.
Despite the advances, however, infant car seats are not as safe or easy to use as they might be. For example, changing the shoulder belt height on most seats means unthreading a complex belt system and rethreading through a different set of slots, which is a difficult task for people who are not mechanically inclined. Additionally, nearly every infant car seat has been recalled because their handle lock mechanisms were not strong enough and jumped position. It has been reported that misuse of infant car seats continues to be a major problem and current seats are too complex. Finally, most infant car seats require removal of the infant carrier from the base to adjust the infant carrier back angle, which means the user is trying to adjust a back angle that is not currently visible.
This invention was developed to continue to advance the state-of-the-art for infant car seats. It attempts to make an infant car seat that is easier to understand, easier to use, and safer.